Bills introduced in US House and Senate to remove per- country green card limits

Washington, Feb. 8: Two identical legislations backed by top companies from the Silicon Valley like Google have been introduced in the US House of Representatives and Senate to end the per- country limit on green cards and could benefit thousands of Indian professionals waiting to gain permanent legal residency if signed into law.

In the Senate, Republican Mike Lee and Democratic presidential aspirant Kamala Harris introduced the Fairness for High- Skilled Immigrants Act on Wednesday, a bill that would remove per- country cap for employmentbased green cards.

An identical bill — Fairness for HighSkilled Immigrants Act ( HR 1044) — was tabled in the US House of Representatives by Congressman Zoe Lofgren and Ken Buck, Chair and Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship, with cosponsorship of a bipartisan group of 112 Congressmen.

If passed by Congress and signed into law, the legislations would benefit thousands of Indian professionals on H- 1B visas.

According to recent studies, some categories of Indian professionals face a wait of 151 years under the current system which imposes a country cap on people who get green cards. The US makes currently 140,000 green cards available every year to employmentbased immigrants.

The existing law, however, provides that not more than seven per cent of these green cards can go to nationals of any one country even though some countries are more populous than others.

Because of this seven per cent limit, for example, a Chinese or Indian postgraduate may have to wait half a decade or more for a Green Card, much longer than a student from a less- populated country.

“Ours is a nation of immigrants, and our strength has always come from our diversity and our unity,” Harris said.